The DefinitionBy definition, photography is the art or practice of taking and processing photographs. In my words, photography is capturing images with the lens of a camera. The root-word photo means light, which comes from the Greek phos. Light is absolutely necessary for capturing a photograph. Without light there would be no picture. The root-word graph means to write, which comes from the Greek graphein. This root-word indicates that the image is written or recorded, creating a photograph. Together, the root-words photo and graph, meaning light and write, originate the word photograph or photography. The HistoryAround 330 B.C. Aristotle observed and noted the optic laws when he wondered why the sun was a circular shape when shone through a square hole. This observation led to the research of the optic laws and the invention of the Camera Obscura, a pinhole camera, invented by Alhazen in around 1000 A.D.. It may come to your surprise that the first photograph was not taken until over 800 years after the camera was invented. This first photograph was taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1826 or 1827 using a camera obscura. Later, Louis Daguerre partnered with Niépce to innovate the camera obscura and in 1839 developed the daguerreotype, which fixed the images taken on sheets of silver-plated copper and would not let the images change when exposed to light. Henry Fox Talbot invented the negative to positive process and perfected it in 1841 calling it a calotype. The CreditedThe Types |